'MoGo' bicycles to hit Detroit streets next month

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Annual and monthly users of MoGo Detroit Bike Share will be able to purchase a card to slide and check out a bicycle. Daily users will be given a five-digit code to punch into bike's docking station.

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Chad Livengood/Crain's Detroit Business

Each MoGo bike comes with some basic instructions on the handle, including advice that riders steer clear of the QLine's street car rails on Woodward Avenue.

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Chad Livengood/Crain's Detroit Business

Lisa Nuszlowski, founder and executive director of MoGo Detroit Bike Share, stands on one of the stations where bikes can be rented through a kiosk and mobile phone apps.

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Chad Livengood/Crain's Detroit Business

MoGo Detroit Bike Share will have 430 bikes across downtown, Midtown and eight surrounding Detroit neighorhoods that will have at least three bikes available to rent at any time.

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Chad Livengood/Crain's Detroit Business

MoGo Detroit Bike Share plans to have 430 bicycles at 43 stations for rent across greater downtown Detroit and surrounding neighborhoods. Henry Ford Health System and Health Alliance Plan are the title sponsors of the bike-sharing system.

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Chad Livengood/Crain's Detroit Business

MoGo Detroit Bike Share plans to have 430 bicycles at 43 stations for rent across greater downtown Detroit and surrounding neighborhoods. The bikes are being stored at a warehouse in Milwaukee Junction until the system is formally launched in mid- to late May.

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Chad Livengood/Crain's Detroit Business

Annual and monthly users of MoGo Detroit Bike Share will be able to purchase a card to slide and check out a bicycle. Daily users will be given a five-digit code to punch into bike's docking station.

Introducing MoGo.

Detroit Bike Share has added four letters to its name ahead of next month's long-awaited roll out of 430 bicycles for rent hitting the streets of downtown, Midtown and nearby neighborhoods.

MoGo Detroit Bike Share is showing off its red-orange three-speed bikes Wednesday to the media at its warehouse in Milwaukee Junction, where the nonprofit is staging its operation for a formal launch before Memorial Day.

The new moniker is a play on Detroit's auto-centric nicknames. Other cities have adopted trendy names for their bike sharing programs. Chicago has Divvy Bikes. Boston has Hubway.

"We're known as the birthplace of Motown, as the Motor City, but increasing we're thinking about Detroit being about mobility and motion and movement," said Lisa Nuszkowski, founder and executive director of Detroit Bike Share. "So the letters M O just kept coming back to us and really resonating with the story of the city and what people know us as and what we're trying to be."

Nuszkowski has been working to launch the bike-sharing program since April 2012, generating $2 million in corporate sponsorships and government grants to fund the purchase of the bikes, docking stations and launching the system.

MoGo Detroit Bike Share, which launched its website Wednesday, is budgeting for $1 million in annual operating costs, half of which will come from corporate sponsors and half from user fees, Nuszkowski said.

By late May, the city's bike share program will have 43 solar-powered stations across downtown, Midtown and eight surrounding neighborhoods where the Canadian-built bicycles will be available for rent.

Quebec, Canada-based PBSC Urban Solutions built the bicycles at its factory near Montreal. The bikes, which cost $1,200 each, have adjustable seats, three speeds, disc brakes, front and rear lights and an internal cable system that is designed to prevent vandalism.

Shift Transit, the bikemaker's operating arm, will run the MoGo Detroit Bike Share system, maintain and repair the bikes and kiosks. Each bike also will be outfitted with a repair button that will transmit a radio signal from a docking station to Shift Transit when a bike is damaged

MoGo will sell daily passes for $8 each at kiosks or through the Transit and Cycle Finder apps.

As part of its transit-oriented short-trip model, users can ride a bike for 30 minutes before they will be charged an extra $4 for each additional 30 minutes of use.

Monthly passes will cost $18 and annual passes will sell for $80 for unlimited rides of less than 30 minutes. Individuals who receive public assistance will be able to purchase an annual access pass for $5, Nuszkowski said.

For the monthly, annual and access users, they will be charged $2 every time they exceed the 30-minute mark. Bikes can be returned to any station with an open docking spot.

Henry Ford Health System and Health Alliance Plan are the title sponsors of the bike sharing program.

Each bicycle features advertisements for the Detroit-based hospital system and its health insurance plan under a three-year sponsorship agreement. The terms of the sponsorship are not being publicly disclosed, Nuszkowski said.

"We are so proud to support Detroit's first-ever bike share program. It's one of the more unique partnerships we've made because of its special wellness component," Wright Lassiter III, president and CEO, Henry Ford Health System, said in a statement. "Bike Share not only provides a convenient transit option for patients, visitors, employees, and neighbors, but also improves the life and vitality of a revitalized Detroit."

MoGo is launching in Detroit less than two months after a bike-sharing program in Seattle was disbanded less than three years after it launched.

Seattle's Pronto bike share system of 500 bikes and 54 stations ended March 31 after ridership lagged because of the northwest city's rainy climate, hilly terrain and a local ordinance requiring helmets, The Seattle Timesreported.

MoGo enters the bike-sharing mobility market after some Detroit companies have experimented with providing bikes to their employees to use for getting around town and exercise.

Henry Ford Health System previously had Zagster bikes at its QuickCare clinic in the Grinnell Building.

"We're proud to have planted the seed for bike sharing in Detroit and to have proven that if you give people access to bikes, they will ride," Zagster spokesman Jon Terbush said in an email.

Quicken Loans and its parent company, Rock Ventures LLC, have provided employees with access to Zagster bikes at several of its downtown office buildings.

"We have not made any changes to our contract with Zagster at this time," Rock Ventures spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said. "We are supportive of Detroit Bike Share and think it will be great for the city."